A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 550: Don’t forget the late emperor’s ambition! Continue the reform

When Zhu Hongwu was in power, all government affairs fell on him because he dismissed the prime minister. Many officials from various places looked down upon Zhu Hongwu, who came from a mud-legged background to become emperor.

Even when he became an official in the Ming Dynasty, he was not willing to work diligently, so he began to make all kinds of troubles. One of those memorials is full of flowers and thousands of words, and the other is all the affairs of the country, all of which are handed over to Zhu Hongwu.

Even the transfer of money and grain from a county had to be sent to the emperor for approval. Zhu Hongwu was extremely talented and energetic, and he was able to handle it.

Of course, Zhu Hongwu could handle it, but the emperors after him could not. In order to solve this problem, the subsequent emperors created a cabinet system. This is another story.

Zhu Hongwu was very harsh on these officials, but they brought this on themselves. During his time in power, these officials suffered so much that they were unable to make a living as officials.

So these people secretly coined some words, such as dedication.

These people call those officials who work seriously and responsibly for the court as "tendering", which means they are flattering and have no integrity. They are flattering the court and a sign of despicable character. They will be discriminated against in the officialdom.

These people receive imperial salaries and do not work seriously. When they see others working seriously, they will slander them. It's so abominable that they even manipulate public opinion and distort facts.

It's no wonder that Zhu Hongwu would kill them all.

In order to prevent some officials from doing things in a "double" way, Wang Cheng also has requirements for streamlining, which must be clear and without ambiguity.

This behavior made those officials very uncomfortable.

At the same time, the court's policies also need to be clear and clear, not vague, and must be explained clearly to the people.

Although after some rectification by Wang Cheng, the number of memorials in the imperial court was significantly reduced, and the content of the memorials was also greatly shortened. In particular, Wang Cheng severely rebuked several memorials that still used all kinds of flowery rhetoric to flatter him, and those officials were even punished by being demoted two levels in a row.

After seeing such severity, the atmosphere in Daqian's official circles immediately changed. The memorial issue has also been initially resolved.

But even after the memorials became concise and clear, there were still thousands of official documents and memorials that the court needed to review every day.

Wang Cheng still spends a lot of time processing it every day. Some of these memorials were not urgent matters, and some of them were completely capable of being solved by the officials below. However, instead of solving them, these officials sent the matter to the court and asked for the Holy Judgment. .

Wang Cheng spends one or two hours every day on these small things. After seeing this situation, Wang Cheng almost couldn't hold back and yelled.

These matters were originally left to the officials below to handle, but instead of handling them, they asked the emperor to handle them. So what should these officials do? Sitting in the yamen as a clay statue?

Is the salary distributed by the court just for feeding dogs?

Wang Cheng severely reprimanded these officials at the court meeting, saying that if their corpses were found dead, he would be dismissed directly and handed over to Dali Temple for investigation.

The salary given by the court is not easy to get, and there is no shortage of people who are willing to be officials.

Although these people were severely reprimanded at the court meeting and official documents were issued. However, the king was worried that these people were making small moves below, so he sent the censor to inspect. After allocating part of the memorials and memorials to official documents, the number of memorials and official documents that Wang Cheng reviewed every day began to decrease significantly. After seeing that there were fewer memorials and official documents, Wang Cheng was obviously relieved.

At the same time, we have stepped up the promotion of the assessment method to prevent those officials from sitting idle or not working seriously. If the assessment is low for three consecutive years, they will be directly dismissed and investigated.

Wang Cheng passed various regulations to limit local rights and increase the emperor's rights. The whole process went smoothly. Coupled with the concerted efforts of everyone in the royal family, after Wang Cheng took control of the court, he began to continue to implement reforms according to his ideas.

The pioneering nobles continued to distribute, but because the previous pioneering nobles had already occupied the easy-to-exploit areas, the subsequent pioneering nobles would have to face more difficulties.

The imperial court still strongly supported them. In order to allow these pioneering nobles to gain a firm foothold, the imperial court basically divided five to six pioneering nobles into one area this time, so that these pioneering nobles could cooperate with each other.

After the pioneering nobles continued to develop, another part of the nobles who mined silver mines were contracted for the second time. At the same time, it was stipulated that nobles, noble families, and powerful people who had already contracted the silver mines once would not be able to continue to contract.

In recent years, the imperial court has opened up overseas silver mines, and many nobles, noble families, and powerful people have gone overseas to mine silver mines.

The silver mines acquired by the Daqian court every year are also rising. Most of these silver mines are minted into silver coins by the court, and only some are collected by nobles.

The imperial court increased its revenue by millions each year through minting coins and collecting taxes. The imperial palace also accumulated a lot of money.

Originally, the royal family was worried that the tens of millions of silver coins invested in the country every year would cause the silver dollar to depreciate and prices to rise. However, after the investment, it was discovered that these tens of millions of silver coins were simply not enough.

After investigation, we discovered that people and businessmen have always used cloth as currency. Although it is a bit inconvenient, it is better than having no money.

The large circulation of silver dollars reduced the cloth into currency, and the court's income increased. Those cloths also flowed into the market as ordinary items, and prices did not rise.

Therefore, even when there have been some natural disasters of various sizes across the country in recent years, the imperial court has money to provide disaster relief.

Now, in order to facilitate disaster relief, the imperial court has formulated a set of practical plans. For example, if there is a major disaster, the local government does not need to ask the court for instructions on whether to open the Changping Granary. It only needs the county guard, governor, and patrol censor to check the epidemic situation and agree, and then the granary can be opened to release grain.

At the same time, there are also standardized requirements for the process of opening warehouses and releasing grain to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the opportunity to seek personal gain and embezzle money and grain. And afterwards, every detail must be reported to the court for review.

After Wang Cheng discovered that there was a very complete process for disaster relief, he also began to consider whether some court affairs should be regulated in this way. If he encounters it in the future, he can just follow the example.

In this way, the affairs of the court can be greatly reduced. After Wang Cheng and everyone in the royal family discussed it, they felt that this matter was very feasible. However, in order to prevent failure, after some discussion, they finally decided to first Small-scale trial.

Wait until there are no problems, and then promote it little by little. Regarding state affairs, Wang Cheng has always dared not be careless.

(End of this chapter)